The Commons

A visa is an authorization to travel to a foreign country. Parenting is the permit process of setting up your kids to obtain a God-stamped visa for the foreign land called life.  

A hundred years ago, William J. Locke wrote best-selling novels. In one of them, there is a story of a woman who had a huge amount of money and who spent half her lifetime touring the sites and art galleries of the world. She toured everywhere. She saw almost every major museum. But…

It’s fun to Google “You know you’ve become your mother when …” Here’s one from McCalls’ magazine in November 1994– 1) You reach across the passenger seat whenever you stop short. 2) You insist your child wear a sweater when you’re cold. 3) You stand up to take pictures at…

“We think of grace arriving like an ambulance, a just-in-time delivery, an invisible divine cavalry cresting a hill of troubles, a bolt of jazz from the glittering horn of the creator, but maybe it lives in us and is activated by illness of the spirit.  Maybe we’re loaded with grace. …

Len’s Bible Credo: Some people get downright silly about the Bible. I’m one of them. I believe this book, from “in the beginning” to the maps, from Genesis to Genuine Leather, is the greatest story ever told. I believe the Bible is the direct depository of divine revelation with the…

10 Commandments Makeover In an article entitled “Preaching to the Modern Pagans,” Bryan Appleyard, a British journalist and novelist (e.g. Bedford Park) tells how he interviewed a person who kept quoting the Decalogue. Inspired to revisit these ancient words for the first time since childhood, he was struck by their…

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman who was sent on a diplomatic mission to Budapest in June 1944, but who ended up saving tens of thousands of Jews from deportation to Nazi camps. How did it happen? On the banks of the Danube, at night, Jews were shot, often tied…

Henry Folger, patron of Folger Shakespeare Library, lived by 3 rules: “Never tell what you’ve done, what you are doing, or what you are going to do.” A de-storied life is not the life of a disciple. A disciple always tells what Jesus has done, what Jesus is doing, and…

“Our healing lies in obedient acceptance of God’s will: but this is no bland resignation. It is a change wrought by anguish, darkness and stripping. If we believe we can experience our healing wihtout deepening our hurt, we have understood nothing of the roots of our faith.” Lord Rowan Williams,…

One of Bonhoeffer’s close friends (Eberhard Bethge) tells of the time the two of them walked home from church together. They were discussing the sermon when, suddenly, Bonhoeffer’s friend told him that there was something about him that he found upsetting unsettling, and hard to take. “There are times when…